Mexican Authorities Cast Doubt on Pictures of El Chapo

Mexican Government14 Jul 2015

The veracity of two photographs, initially published by El Blog De Narco, has been questioned by various individuals on both sides of the border. The photos, allegedly of Joaquin Guzman Loera, more commonly known as “El Chapo,” have been aggregated by countless news organizations. They appear to show a mustached man who some claim to be Guzman riding in an airplane or drinking a beer.

Since his brazen escape from a maximum-security prison has become a worldwide sensation.

Photo claiming to show the fame capo El Chapo Guzman on an airplane

Most recently Mexico’s attorney general’s office (PGR) issued out a photograph of a shaved Guzman showing the public what the man looks like as part of the capture efforts.

A new jail photo of El Chapo. Photo courtesy Office of the Mexican Attorney General.

Breitbart Texas spoke with various law enforcement officials in Mexico who claim that any photos of the famed capo are wrong because any inmate at a Mexican Federal Prison known as CEFERESO are forced to shave any facial hair meaning that El Chapo’s legendary mustache is gone.

The photographs, which were widely circulated on Twitter, have been called out as fake on social media by a Mexican attorney on twitter who goes by the handle @Marshal_Mx. Through his no-holds-barred comments on public safety issues, law, and public policy, the lawyer has become a twitter sensation amongst pundits in Mexico.

@Marshal_MX also claims that the photographs are not credible because by CEFERESO’s operating procedures all inmates are shaved.

“So what did he automatically grow a mustache?” the pundit said in Spanish on Twitter. “HAHAHA he no longer had a mustache. It is not allowed in the prison.”

The critics of the photographs also came from the U.S. side of the border, while law enforcement officials have not made any official comments on the photographs,

Mike Vigil, the former chief for international operations for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, is quoted by the San Antonio Express News as doubting the timing of the photos, stating that if they are in fact real they are not recent and the release of timely photos would be beneficial to authorities.

“I don’t think (his son) would leak those photos because that could be used to try and apprehend Chapo and that would be circumventing his planned escape,” Vigil is quoted by the Texas publication.